


the whole damn meal

by sugarboat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, M/M, Unresolved Tension, violent imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21109451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarboat/pseuds/sugarboat
Summary: There's a monster in the Institute and if someone has to feed it, it might as well be Jon.





	the whole damn meal

Jon comes into his office without warning or announcement and closes the door behind himself. Elias doesn’t look away from his computer screen, but he hardly needs to. Just as Jon hardly needed to announce his intentions in any manner more explicit than him making his way here. 

It’s delightful, how they know each other this way now. Elias lets the moment linger between them. Jon is tense and impatient, waiting for Elias to say something. Irritation increasing in sharp, upward ticks the longer he feels deliberately ignored. 

It isn’t that Elias was in the middle of anything important. He’d been thoroughly distracted the moment he noticed Jon coming up from the Archives, expression grim. He could peek at the fitful, beautiful tides of his Archivist’s thoughts, find what’s brought him here so abruptly, but- that would be cheating. And he does so enjoy the anticipation. 

“Jon,” he says, finally glancing to him. Their eyes meet immediately. “Come in, please.” As though Jon’s not invited himself in already. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” 

Jon sighs. Even with Elias making the concentrated effort not to look his resentment bleeds into the air around him. And reluctance. That’s more interesting, as Jon’s the one who’s brought himself here, free of any interference on Elias’ behalf. When Elias looks up to him again – raises an eyebrow, an inquiry that Jon chooses to interpret as a chastisement – Jon flushes. He clears his throat and forces himself forward. 

“Of course,” Jon says, “Take your time. Clearly I haven’t come for anything important.” 

“Have you?” Elias asks, a pretense of mild and unfocused. 

Jon drags the feet of his chair more brutishly than is called for as he takes a seat. Elias fills in some more details to the endless excel sheets that make up the Institute’s allocation records, budgetary and otherwise. It’s mostly an idle motion to keep himself busy. To keep Jon somewhat relaxed as he settles himself, and allows Elias to watch him in other manners than the strictly obvious. 

Jon seems nervous. He settles with his arms crossed over his chest, rests there for a moment before he extends them and ends with his elbows on the armrests, fingers twitching against his lap. The topmost button of his shirt is undone, and the sleeves are rolled up, displaying the straight, slender bowing of his forearms. Their pale undersides when he turns, the skin soft and delicate. A flutter of his pulse at the crook of his wrist, luridly tantalizing in the soft light of Elias’ office. 

“Why else would I be here,” Jon mutters. It’s a rhetoric more directed towards himself than Elias. Elias allows himself a small smile.

“Why indeed?” Elias echoes. He feels more than sees Jon’s huff as he sets about saving his work, before turning to indulge in the direct observation of his Archivist. “Now, what can I do for you, Jon?” 

“I should think that would be obvious.” Drawling, and scornful – a conspicuous tell of Jon’s discomfort. Jon glances away for a moment, his face turned just to the side. It casts stark shadows, highlights the cut of his jaw and the column of his throat. His gaze snaps back to Elias’, weighty and enough to warrant a small frisson of pleasure shivering down Elias’ spine. “Particularly as it involves you.” 

Elias leans back in his seat, considering. That does make Jon’s abrupt appearance here a bit more comprehensible, and Elias does little enough to stifle how that fact pleases him. If he’s reached the correct assumption, of course, and oh, he looks forward to coaxing it forth from his Archivist. Jon scowls at him.

“I’m afraid I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Elias says. 

In the light of Jon’s reluctance it’s a fair enough statement, and true to an extent. It leaves just enough wiggle room for Jon to argue, but not quite enough for him to rally anything more than transparent contrarianism. 

For a moment, that seems exactly what Jon plans to do regardless. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s taken the more combative approach to interpersonal relations. Jon clenches his jaw, his hands curling into tight fists in his lap before they relax. Elias sits back and watches. 

“I-” Jon begins, almost pained at the drag of the syllable out of his throat. “Your feeding. It’s- a periodic need, correct?” 

Excitement leaps along Elias’ nerves. It’s a struggle to keep his affect properly controlled. Sluggish as it is, Elias feels the beat of his heart keenly in this moment, its slow acceleration. The clench and release of it around dull, old blood, all but drained of its vitae. 

“Well, I can hardly create more on my own,” Elias answers. It’s a simplification of the process but makes his point clear enough. 

“Right.” Jon nods, stern and severe against the flutter of his own nerves. The quickened throb of his pulse where Elias can still see it if he looks closely, carefully. “How often do you- do you eat?” 

This time his question is tinted with just the barest shades of compulsion. A teasing caress, like the brush of leather over skin. Tantalizing in its gentle promise of pain. 

“Oh, it’s quite variable – dependent on a multitude of factors.”

Jon is positively stricken with curiosity at the answer – Elias watches him swallow down the tide of his questioning. “And when was the last time you… fed?” 

Stated with such particular annunciation, Jon striving for the professional detachment that lets him dismiss so much else in his life. That _used_ to let him dismiss so much else in his life. 

“I think you know that as well as I do,” Elias says. 

He doesn’t bother to stop himself from remembering it, while Jon’s hand goes to his wrist, thumb rubbing over two pale, slivery scars seated above his artery. Neat, because Elias prefers to not leave a mess, even as necessity and hunger clambered at the back of his mind. As Jon’s blood had flooded into his mouth, rich and metallic. The soft warmth of Jon’s skin beneath his lips, the slight tremble of his body against Elias’ where they met. 

Gentle compliance as Elias sucked, pulling in mouthful after mouthful of Jon’s blood to swallow, warm and thick down his throat. The quiet gasp of his name, Jon clutching him. Shearing Jon’s skin open over and over, as the cuts healed beneath the lap of Elias’ tongue. 

It had been an act of sheer willpower for Elias to pull himself away. 

As much of a reward as the feeding was the aftermath. Jon sluggish and fuzzy at his edges, heavy lidded with the rush of endorphins after the fraught tension everything leading up to their first feeding had been. Pliant and lovely – the pallor of blood loss suited him. Made those dark circles around his eyes even more pronounced. His fingers had threaded through Elias’ hair at some point and they remained there, a tremulous grasp, as Elias lifted him to deposit on the couch in his office. 

“Yes,” Jon says after a delay, the flush on his cheeks definitive now. He clears his throat. “Yes, I- I know.” 

The temptation is too much, then, with Elias awash in the recalled sensation of Jon’s blood pulsing heavily into his mouth. With Jon shifting and averting his gaze, his tone turned to that soft, thoughtful cadence he gets when he’s reasoning through something, and when Elias glances – just quickly – he finds Jon’s thoughts resolved around the bright sting of remembered pain, surrounded as it was by the heat of Elias’ mouth. 

Jon’s memories are less sharp than his own, which isn’t surprising. And the pieces he recalls with clarity are gratifyingly telling. The way his body had shuddered each and every time Elias reopened his skin. Elias’ eyes half-lidded, cheeks growing warm and flushed with life. Jon remembers how Elias had begun to swallow in time to the beat of his heart, a moment frozen with the dull thud of it in his ears, and then the bobbing of Elias’ throat. Suction on his wrist. The soothe of Elias’ tongue over his flesh. 

“That is-” Jon says, “That’s why I’m here, actually. I’ve been doing research-”

“Have you?” 

“I- Yes, Elias, you’re hardly the only _vampire_ in existence.” The way Jon says it is utterly endearing, as if he’s still loath to admit to the existence of something so base as a vampire. “According to the accounts we have cataloged in the Archives, most felt the urge to- to feed at least once every few weeks. If not more frequently.” 

“I see,” Elias answers, feigning polite intrigue. Jon narrows his eyes.

“Well, if I was the last person you, ah, fed off of, then…” Jon trails off. If Jon was slightly more adept at navigating social cues Elias would suspect he’s purposefully drawing things out. As it is, it’s somewhat more enticing to think that Jon has no real concept of how he’s whetting Elias’ appetite, his anticipation, and he’s rewarded as Jon takes a shuddery, stealing breath before looking at him again. “Then, I suppose, you must be feeling- hungry?” 

There’s no reason to stifle any of his interest now. Elias allows himself to sit forward, lavishing his Archivist in the full weight of his attention. Something about it makes Jon sit straighter in his chair, spine going slightly rigid. Elias looks over him, again, lingering on the stretches of skin Jon has bared for their meeting. Knowing what Elias is and flaunting these soft, vulnerable areas regardless. Either brazen with defiance, or- 

Or, coming to offer something. 

“Perhaps,” Elias finally says. It’s not quite as straightforward an issue as Jon might like it to be, particularly at Elias’ advanced age. No easy line between hunger and satiation, and very little danger of any of the more dramatic accounts Jon might have found in his research. Younglings starved, losing themselves to the call of blood, to the vibrant decadence of gore. “And if I was?” 

Jon balks from the answer, of course, in the form of a sneer. “Shouldn’t you know that already? Aren’t always watching us, always listening to us?” 

“Now, now,” Elias chides, rising from his chair. “It would be a bit presumptuous of me to tell you what you’re intending to do, don’t you agree?”

“You’ve never seemed to mind a bit of presumption before,” Jon mutters. 

He’s stock still as Elias rounds the desk. Nothing moving on him but his eyes, dark and judging, which track the way Elias approaches. There’s little enough space between the edge of the desk and Jon’s chair. Elias steps carefully to keep their legs from touching. Jon has to crane his neck to continue meeting his gaze, baring the straight length of it.

Elias takes his chin in hand. Strokes a thumb across his jaw, over the rough scratch of the stubble dusting his features. He tilts Jon’s head to one side, and further back, near to the point of strain and Jon lets him, watches him. Jon’s lips part in a soft exhale. Elias imagines the constriction of Jon’s throat as he swallows, heavily. 

“I’d like you to tell me why you’ve come here.” 

“You can feed off me,” Jon says. It’s all forced out in one breathless rush of air. Elias can appreciate how much effort it took Jon to admit that much. 

“Can I now?” 

Jon scowls at him, but the effect is mostly undermined by their positioning. “If this is the part where you go on about how you were always capable of-”

“Jon,” Elias interrupts what would no doubt be a delightful complaint, “Do you want me to feed off you?”

A fairly obvious and, at this point, almost unnecessary question. It flushes Jon all the same. Elias drags his thumb upwards, to feel the warming rush of blood heating Jon’s cheek. His Archivist, still so human and graceless. 

“I’d rather you did it to me than- than to someone else,” Jon says. 

Elias smiles, indulgent and pleased. He tilts Jon’s head towards the other side and Jon sighs like he’s irritated, mortally offended, yielding to the guidance all the same. The position allows Elias to bring his free hand forward and trail his fingertips down the length of Jon’s neck. Pausing against the places where his pulse surges up against the surface, just below the curve of his jaw and following it down. Along the cartilage of his trachea, and Elias takes a moment to linger at the jut of his adam’s apple, putting pressure on it and enjoying the feel of it bobbing beneath his fingers. 

“That wasn’t quite what I was asking,” Elias murmurs. Fingers back on Jon’s pulse so he can feel the way its pace kicks up at his words. 

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” Jon snaps, only a matter of time, really. “Please, Elias, drink my blood, drain me until you’re satisfied.” 

Even with the sarcasm thick on every syllable, Elias can’t deny the stirring Jon’s little tirade evokes. He licks his lips and then, slowly, deliberately, lowers himself to a kneel before his Archivist. Hands skimming down Jon’s chest, squeezing lightly at his thighs. Craving the day Jon watches him settle at his feet with expectance rather than trepidation. 

“Exactly something like that.” 

Elias takes Jon’s hand in both of his own. The left, and Elias turns it palm up, revealing the twinned scars his last bite left on his wrist. There’s a silvery scar down the center of Jon’s palm too, from the Distortion, which Elias is less enthused to see. But he brings Jon’s hand to his mouth and kisses the center of it and mouths his way to his wrist. 

“Elias…” Barely more than a gasp. Accompanied by a tremor down his captured arm when Elias’ teeth graze against his pulse point. 

“Is this what you want, Jon?” He applies just enough pressure to feel Jon’s delicate skin begin to yield beneath the points of his teeth. He wishes he could watch it depress and give, the sweet surrender of flesh the moment before it breaks. 

“I-” Jon cuts himself off with a shaky little inhale as Elias plays at biting him again, sharps of his teeth just catching and dragging, just shy of pushing through skin. “Yes, Elias-”

If there was going to be more, it’s lost as Elias finally digs in, the flow of Jon’s blood into his mouth strong and sudden. It tastes much the same as any other meal Elias has ever had, coppered and savory, making his mouth water even as Jon’s frantic pulse throbs more and more forth until Elias is forced to swallow. Warm, and thick, coating the surfaces of his mouth, flooding down his throat like a rich, dark wine. 

It’s easy to time himself to the rhythmic thudding of his Archivist’s heartbeat. A drawing pull with every pulse and Elias swallows greedily, lapping over Jon’s shorn flesh with his tongue in between each mouthful. Jon’s breath is coming shorter, faster, and his body trembles with shivers each time Elias plays with the tender edges of the fresh bitemarks Elias has given him. 

The wounds begin to heal far too soon, growing shallow and slowing the flow of his blood until Elias has to put his lips to skin and suck to draw any out. It’s excessively tempting to force his teeth back in and rip Jon’s artery open again. But Elias manages to pull himself away, gives the wet, sore skin of Jon’s wrist a parting kiss. 

“Ah,” Jon sighs, almost like he’s stirring. Almost reproachful, if Elias isn’t mistaken, as he continues, “Are you- You drank longer last time.” 

“I was injured last time,” Elias murmurs, letting his lips brush against Jon’s skin with each word. He leaves it at that long enough to see a little furrow form in the center of Jon’s brow. “However, I’m not finished just yet.” 

“You’re certainly taking your time then. I would think that even for monsters, playing with one’s food is in poor taste.” 

Elias chuckles, drawing Jon’s hand close to his mouth once more. Jon probably has no idea how amusing that complaint is coming from _him_. Elias presses another kiss to the soft curve of his palm, watching the discomfort flit across Jon’s face. 

“I’m not playing with you, Jon.”

“Then what are you doing?” Jon demands, static laced and tingling.

Elias pulls, applies gentle force until Jon leans forward, offering his arm. He traces along the inside of Jon’s forearm, up to where his shirt sleeve is rolled just below his elbow. Pushes the fabric up, out of his way, so he can bend in and lave his tongue over the pulse of Jon’s artery there, too. It’s a delicate curve, meandering into the crook of Jon’s elbow and up. 

“Feeding,” Elias says, and bites down. 

It makes Jon gasp and jerk against him. The movement jars Elias’ teeth in his skin, in his flesh. Tears ragged and uneven the neat little puncture wounds Elias would have otherwise left. 

“Just- Just dig in wherever you like,” Jon complains. Sarcastic even with his voice gone soft and breathless. 

Elias hums faintly around his mouthful. His Archivist is so much more spectacular up close. The quick, quiet heaving of his chest up and down, how it seizes with the air frozen half in his lungs when Elias sucks hard on the fresh bites. Elias imagines his ribcage must vibrate with the force of his frantic, fluttering pulse. He digs the tip of his tongue into one of those shorn, jagged openings, and relishes the stifled groan Jon gives as his flesh parts softly around the intrusion, hot and soaking and yielding for him. 

Even with Elias twisting and probing his tongue into the wounds, flexing against the hotly swollen and tender insides of his Archivist – who gives the most delightful opine (_that _hurts, _Elias_) in response, that makes Elias want to do nothing but hurt him again and again – this session is over nearly as quickly as the first. The flooding tide of Jon’s blood slowing to a stream then a trickle and then nothing at all. When Elias pulls away there’s nothing but puffy, pink skin inflamed where Elias bit and teased, wet and shiny with his saliva. 

“Are you- Are you going to tell me what you’re doing?” There’s a beat. “Don’t say _feeding_, for Christ’s sake-”

“If you’re not getting the answers you’d like, Jon, perhaps you’re not asking the right questions.”

Jon glares at him, petulant. No doubt already beginning to feel the effects of their time together. Elias certainly can. Jon’s blood has warmed a straight line down his throat, his gullet, burns in his stomach before it’s slowly absorbed to throb through his veins. Arteries growing flush and fat, lending life to his skin. 

Elias leans back to watch his Archivist carefully. Jon’s still breathing fast, eyes sharp with interest, cheeks vaguely reddened even as blood loss has begun to drain the color otherwise from his face. Even new, and so fragile in his becoming, the fixation of his Archivist’s captivating attention is a luxury Elias relishes. There’s something almost self-indulgent in the sensation, self-referential. 

Jon’s humanity is a delicate thing. There are splinters in it already, through which something so much more shines and pulses in its potential. Elias could drain it from him here and now. Complete the circuitous charge between them, that hangs half finished with Jon’s blood in Elias’ body. His skin prickles and tightens in a numinous wave at the thought of bringing Jon to the brink of death. Of seeing the Eye open itself and sustain Jon just long enough for him to take what he needs, for him to tear Elias’ own flesh open and gorge himself therein. 

It’s a lovely vision. He imagines Jon perched in his lap, his Archivist’s mouth red and wet with gore. Ripping into him, over and over, and yes, Elias longs to let the creature he sees flourishing before him glut itself on him. Become flayed beneath his Archivist’s scourge, flesh sundered and consumed, Jon’s lips against him while his low, desperate voice rings through Elias’ being and empties him anew. 

But Elias – the Eye – won’t take more than Jon has willingly offered. It’s only a matter of time, a matter of patience, and until that time Elias has this to enjoy. Jon rapt with curiosity and fear, a perfect conduit for the Eye. 

A perfect meal for It, too. For Elias. He may not have his Archivist’s talents for pulling secrets bloody and raw into the light, but he knows them all the same, and Jon has secrets aplenty he clutches close and tight to his heart. 

The reversal of his idle fantasies is just as lovely, Elias finds. Jon kicks up a bit of a fuss when Elias moves to straddle his lap but that’s to be expected.

“Good lord,” Jon says, all prim and proper fluster. His hands find Elias’ hips to steady him and then flit away from the touch as if he’s been burned. “What are you- No. Nevermind. I expect you aren’t going to _tell_ me anything I’d actually like to know. Are you quite enjoying yourself?” 

The compulsion sings along his nerves. Reverberates in his skull and throat like a choir’s final note, chasing echoes of itself back and forth. Elias shudders. An answer lingers on the tip of his tongue, threatens to spill over at any moment. 

He swallows against the urge, instead puts his hands to Jon’s collar and plays at smoothing out the material. Takes careful note of the way Jon stiffens and rears back, thunking softly against the cushion of the chair. Jon swallows and his pulse kicks frantically, his mouth parts on a silent breath. Elias plucks another button free and splays the material wide, revealing the soft hollow of Jon’s throat and the barest hints of collarbones. 

“I am,” Elias murmurs, once the compulsion has run itself out, “Aren’t you?” 

And then he draws Jon upwards by the grip he has on his shirt. Pulls him into an arch that Jon willows into readily, for all the protests that blare instinctively through his thoughts. Elias leans down- not to his Archivist’s lips, which he’s pleased note Jon is currently imagining with some panicked amount of fervor, but he brushes his mouth over Jon’s jawline. 

There’s hitching breath. Jon’s hands find his shoulders, clutch at them. 

“Elias,” Jon breathes. 

He takes a hand off Jon’s collar to tangle it in his hair instead. Encouragement that’s hardly needed as Jon tilts his head back, cocked to the side, displaying the stretch of his throat and the surge of his pulse just below the skin. Elias takes his time, mouthing along the straight line of Jon’s jaw before dipping lower, into the tender dip where Elias can feel Jon’s heartbeat beneath his lips. Beneath his tongue, as he follows the wind of Jon’s artery, tracing the path his fingers mapped earlier. 

There’s nothing particular he waits for. Jon is trembling with anticipation, twitches and sighs when he feels Elias’ teeth at his throat. It’s in the lull between one rush of blood and the next that Elias finally breaks skin, sinks his fangs into the side of Jon’s neck. 

Now, truly, he can appreciate his Archivist in full. Jon’s eyelids flutter as he breathes around the sting of his skin being opened. He shifts restlessly below Elias. Unconsciously bares himself as Elias feeds. Jon makes a hurt little noise when Elias sucks at these new wounds, but he doesn’t stop him. Squirms viciously when Elias leaves the first bite bleeding sluggishly and mouths downward, bites again. 

Drinks. Jon places a hand on the back of his neck, fingers tremulous. Bites again. Jon writhes, bucks beneath him. Elias keeps his handhold in Jon’s hair, tugging him back. Drinks. Brings his free hand up to scratch at the marks that are still healing. Bites again. Jon whines, his restless shifting finally weaker, and Elias could continue, knowing that Jon wouldn’t stop him, would just keep writhing and gasping and making small sounds that go straight to Elias’ cock. 

As he’s come to expect, it’s up to Elias to be the voice of moderation between them. Elias parts with no small amount of reluctance. He licks along the row of red and bleeding bites littering the side of Jon’s throat. This close – with Jon’s blood in his stomach, in his veins, with Jon clinging to him and their bodies all but flush – Elias can almost feel what Jon feels, the scatter of pain juddering down his nerve endings, sheer sensation that Jon finds himself craving. All the points where Elias fed throb, feel hot and tight, and some part of Jon’s unmoored thoughts are considering where else Elias might go, how much more Elias might take. 

Jon gazes at him groggily when Elias pulls back far enough. He reaches up shakily and thumbs a sticky track of blood off of Elias’ chin for him. Elias catches his hand before it drops back down. It’s his right, swirled with the gnarled scarring the Desolation left him. Elias presses a kiss to this palm, as well, near the lines Jude Perry’s fingers scored into his Archivist. 

“How do you feel, Jon?” he asks, due diligence. Jon blinks at him slowly, like keeping his eyes open takes unbearable effort. 

“F-Fine.” A pause, wherein Elias pets through his Archivist’s hair and Jon sighs into the touch, melts into it before remembering himself. Jon clears his throat. “Well. Perhaps a bit- drained.” 

Elias chuckles and disentangles himself from his Archivist. He offers one hand to help tug Jon to his feet, and enjoys how Jon sways slightly, how he needs Elias’ support to stagger over to the couch and all but collapse there. Jon gives a wordless complaint when Elias goes to leave his side, and Elias settles himself next to his Archivist instead. Strokes the sweat-dampened locks of Jon’s hair back from his forehead as his eyes fall shut. 

He stays there as Jon slowly drifts, subsumed and exhausted from the experience of his own physicality. Elias stays as Jon falls properly into sleep, and watches his Archivist’s eyes twitch back and forth beneath their lids, stark and wild with terror in the dark of his nightmares.


End file.
